Subject: ​Correct The Record Friday September 26, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 09:57:35 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Friday September 26, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*The Daily Beast: Myra Adams: “Wake Up, Republicans: Hillary Clinton’s
Machine Can Crush You”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/26/wake-up-republicans-hillary-clinton-s-machine-can-crush-you.html>*

“In order to defend Clinton against any damaging revelations that may
emerge from the select House committee on Benghazi, no fewer than three
Democrat groups are ready to pounce. On September 16, Politico reported
that a new pro-Clinton group called Correct the Record will work with
Democratic researchers and establish a web site that ‘is designed like a
news site and will issue detailed, rapid responses to charges against
Clinton — mimicking the way a campaign would defend a candidate in real
time during a presidential debate.’”

*Ralston Reports: “Hillary to raise money for state Democrats, Reid next
month”
<http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/hillary-raise-money-state-democrats-reid-next-month>*

“Before she collects that $225,000 fee next month or speaking to the UNLV
Foundation, Hillary Clinton will headline a fundraiser for the state
Democratic Party, with a fraction of the proceeds going to Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid's re-election fund.”

*Wall Street Journal: “At Clinton Wonkfest, a Star Is (Not Yet) Born”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/25/at-clinton-wonkfest-a-star-is-not-yet-born/>*

“It might as well have been called: ‘Chelsea’s having a baby.’”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Bill and Hillary Still a Study
in Clinton Contrasts”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/26/bill-and-hillary-still-a-study-in-clinton-contrasts/>*

“All these years after leaving office, Bill Clinton remains the LeBron of
American politics – a reality that creates a potential pitfall for Hillary
Clinton and her likely presidential campaign”

*The Hill opinion: Lauren Ashburn: “How Hillary Clinton is helping GOP
women”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/218953-how-hillary-clinton-is-helping-republican-women>*

“Even the Hillary haters would have to agree that she's good for one thing:
getting voters to see that women can play at the highest level of
government.”

*Washington Free Beacon column: Matthew Continetti: “The Golden Bowl”
<http://freebeacon.com/columns/the-golden-bowl/>*

“Neither the legitimate journalists nor the partisan bloggers recognize the
true import of Goodman’s reporting: That the mainstream media is
fundamentally lazy and horrible at their jobs.”

*Associated Press: “Woman Guilty Of Trespass In Clinton Shoe Incident”
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/085c3d4b6f4e4fab9405464d808ee806/woman-guilty-trespass-clinton-shoe-incidenthttp:/bigstory.ap.org/article/085c3d4b6f4e4fab9405464d808ee806/woman-guilty-trespass-clinton-shoe-incident>*

“A Phoenix woman who was accused of throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton
while the former U.S. secretary of state addressed a Las Vegas audience in
April pleaded guilty to trespassing, but is fighting a charge of violence
against a person in a restricted building.”

*Articles:*

*The Daily Beast: Myra Adams: “Wake Up, Republicans: Hillary Clinton’s
Machine Can Crush You”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/26/wake-up-republicans-hillary-clinton-s-machine-can-crush-you.html>*

By Myra Adams

September 26, 2014

[Subtitle:] Many GOPers continue the self-deception—she’s not running.
Here’s a whiff of reality from a Republican. She’s running, and she’s
formidable.

Over the last two years I have engaged in countless discussions with
Republican friends and colleagues about whether Hillary Clinton would run
for president in 2016. What I discovered were two distinct schools of
thought: Republicans who were hopeful that she would not run, and
Republicans who were confident that she would not run.

Both camps believed that Clinton would bow out or not win her party’s
nomination for one or more of the following reasons:

She has secret health problems.

She is too old and unattractive.

An “unknown” Democrat would rise up and defeat her for the nomination, a la
2008.

Her priorities will change once she becomes a grandmother.

Benghazi revelations will take her down.

As someone who since early 2013 was confident that Clinton would run for
president in 2016, I believed that the “Clinton deniers” among my fellow
Republicans were engaging in the political equivalent of sticking their
heads in the sand.

Now, because of five news items that have unfolded during this month of
September, Republican deniers must face the fact that not only is Clinton
running, but that she will be a formidable opponent against any of the
current potential GOP candidates. This, despite her many flaws and heavy
baggage.

Here are September’s five important pieces of Hillary news that fit
together like a puzzle—and the last two, without political precedent.

First, on September 5, in a speech at a charity event in Mexico, Clinton
stated that she will announce her presidential intentions “after the first
of the year.”

Why would a presidential candidate mention a specific time frame five
months away unless the news was extremely positive for her supporters?

Second, on September 14, Hillary Clinton teased and winked-winked her way
through retiring Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry saying, "Hello
Iowa. I'm back!"  Just those four words unleashed thousands of headlines
like this one from the AP, “Hillary Clinton in Iowa Stirs 2016 Speculation.”

Third, the ever-shy potential “First Dude,” speaking at this same Iowa
steak fry, sung the praises of Ready for Hillary, his wife’s
“campaign-in-waiting,” which was out in force. “Amazing. They are amazing,”
said the former president. “You know I saw some of them here. I think with
the rules we’re not supposed to have any contact with them. They’re like
Energizer Bunnies. They’re just everywhere.”

Yes, the Ready for Hillary PAC will soon be everywhere—in fact, working in
every state where there is a key Senate race in the upcoming midterm
election. This is number four on my list, and it is politically
groundbreaking. Never in the history of American politics has an
organization with an unannounced presidential candidate tried to influence
the outcome of an election in the name of that candidate.

Ready for Hillary communications director Seth Bringman announced that
starting on October 1, his political staff will plant itself in 14 states.
A September 17 email to reporters stated the following: “This staff
deployment is part of Ready for Hillary's continued commitment to
channeling the enthusiasm for a potential Hillary campaign into helping
Democrats on the ballot this year.”

Think of it this way: Ready for Hillary is collecting political IOU’s for
its leader, who can never publicly acknowledge the group’s existence.

The fifth, final, and most spectacular September development on the road to
Clinton’s January presidential announcement is another historical political
milestone and a precursor to how a Hillary 2016 campaign will sound.

In order to defend Clinton against any damaging revelations that may emerge
from the select House committee on Benghazi, no fewer than three Democrat
groups are ready to pounce. On September 16, Politico reported that a new
pro-Clinton group called Correct the Record will work with Democratic
researchers and establish a web site that “is designed like a news site and
will issue detailed, rapid responses to charges against Clinton — mimicking
the way a campaign would defend a candidate in real time during a
presidential debate.”

Meanwhile, the GOP is fractured, leaderless, and still about 19 months away
from the emergence of its 2016 standard bearer – regardless whether
Republicans win back the Senate in November. Take one look at the Real
Clear Politics 2016 Republican presidential nomination poll averages. It
gives new meaning to the words fractured and leaderless.

Then, if you are a Republican with a strong stomach, check out RCP’s 2016
general election match-ups, with Clinton defeating every likely GOP
presidential candidate by wide margins.

All the evidence suggests that Clinton is on her way to becoming the great
social movement I warned and wrote about back in January 2013 and why I
predicted her 2016 victory back in August 2013.

Americans may not want a coronation in 2016 but the assembling of the
infrastructure to elect America’s first female president is well underway
and from a Republican point of view looks unstoppable.

If you think of her in retail terms, Hillary is Costco, Wal-Mart, and Home
Depot all rolled into one mega-mega-mega-store. Meanwhile, the GOP’s 2016
candidates are small specialty boutiques in a suburban, red-state shopping
mall.

In anticipation of 2016 the GOP had better consolidate its goods and
reinvent its brand. It also has to dump the Hillary deniers, because at
this point, denying her candidacy is counterproductive to formulating a
coherent strategy._After all that, the party can go to market with a
product that is acceptable to the masses.

If not, on November 8, 2016, the GOP will be out of the White House
business for years to come.

*Ralston Reports: “Hillary to raise money for state Democrats, Reid next
month”
<http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/hillary-raise-money-state-democrats-reid-next-month>*

By Jon Ralston

September 25, 2014, 11:19

Before she collects that $225,000 fee next month or speaking to the UNLV
Foundation, Hillary Clinton will headline a fundraiser for the state
Democratic Party, with a fraction of the proceeds going to Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid's re-election fund.

The event will take place before Clinton's speech and a yet-to-be disclosed
location and will cost donors $10,000 for a VIP ticket ($15,000 for
couples) and $1,000 if you just want to go to the reception.

The event is for a joint fundraising entity called the Reid Nevada Fund,
with most of the proceeds, as you can see below, going to the state party.

This will be a nice infusion -- I can smell high six figures here -- going
into Election Day.

*Wall Street Journal: “At Clinton Wonkfest, a Star Is (Not Yet) Born”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/25/at-clinton-wonkfest-a-star-is-not-yet-born/>*

By Peter Nicholas

September 15, 2014, 6:58 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK – The theme of the wonkfest known as the Clinton Global Initiative
was “reimagining impact.”

It might as well have been called: “Chelsea’s having a baby.”

The daughter of the former and – possibly – future president of the U.S.
was a very pregnant looking fixture at the conference, prompting guest
speaker Barack Obama to offer up his presidential motorcade in case she
went into labor right there in the ballroom of the Sheraton in midtown
Manhattan.

That didn’t happen. But the baby seemed on everyone’s mind.

In panel discussions, moderators invariably asked Bill and Hillary Clinton
about their new role as first-time grandparents.

At one point Chelsea Clinton drew the baby into a discussion of the plight
of the African elephant, worrying that her first child could “grow up in a
world without elephants.”

CNN’s Erin Burnett, in an interview with Mr. Clinton on Wednesday, asked
him if would need to “baby-proof” the White House – a question that had the
added bonus of teasing out whether his wife indeed plans to run in 2016.

Mr. Clinton gave away nothing: He said he was merely interested in becoming
a grandfather.

“One thing at a time,” he said.

CNN then played a video feed of actor Matt Damon asking Mr. Clinton a
question about clean water and sanitation. But Mr. Damon couldn’t resist.

“Are you excited to be a grandfather?”

Mr. Clinton made clear he’s been thinking about the baby’s arrival.  (In a
separate interview, he suggested the baby could come by Oct. 1.)

Are you excited?” Ms. Burnett asked the 42nd president.

“I’m out of control,” said Mr. Clinton.

He’s been giving himself advice on how best to play his part.

“Every day I get up and I say: you have to remember whose child this is,”
Mr. Clinton continued. “Do not interfere! Be there when you’re welcome. Be
loving, but not judgmental.”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Bill and Hillary Still a Study
in Clinton Contrasts”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/26/bill-and-hillary-still-a-study-in-clinton-contrasts/>*

By Peter Nicholas

September 26, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK – Take a workmanlike pro basketball player and stick him next to
LeBron James and the contrast will be glaring. One makes jump shots; the
other dazzles with thunderous dunks.

All these years after leaving office, Bill Clinton remains the LeBron of
American politics – a reality that creates a potential pitfall for Hillary
Clinton and her likely presidential campaign.

Watching the two on stage this week at the Clinton Global Initiative’s
annual conference drove home the point. The former president is the natural
politician of the family; Mrs. Clinton the natural policy wonk. His
speeches sound conversational, improvised. Hers sound scripted. He looks
like he’s having fun; she looks like she’s working.

There was a revealing moment Sunday night when Mr. Clinton, perhaps not
realizing a microphone was on, approached a drummer who had just performed
in the Sheraton ballroom and gushed over “the riff you just did.” The
amateur sax player was relishing the moment, admiring the skills of an
accomplished musician.

Both worked the conference hard over three days, discussing efforts to
fight Ebola, expand the supply of clean drinking water and preserve
endangered wildlife.

In one instance each used a personal story to make a point. Speaking to
CNN, Mr. Clinton got a question about NFL football player Ray Rice’s
assault on his then-fiancée in an elevator. Mr. Clinton, as a boy growing
up in Arkansas,  had his own brush with domestic abuse, stepping in to warn
his stepfather not to hit his mother and half- brother.

He paused a beat, causing the audience to lean in and listen more
intently.  “I know a lot about this subject,” Mr. Clinton said. “I grew up
in a home with domestic violence. And God I hope that it works out alright.
I hope he really is OK and he never does it again.”

Mrs. Clinton, in a separate panel, talked about her mother Dorothy Rodham,
whose divorced parents sent her to California at age eight to live with
unloving grandparents.

“My own mother faced a lot of very difficult challenges and her resilience
coming out of an abusive and neglectful childhood made such a big
impression on me,”  Mrs. Clinton said. Knowing what her mother endured
helped convince her there must be “more attention paid to how we help our
youngest children get off to the best start.”

In Mr. Clinton’s answer, one feels the pain of family wounds; in Mrs.
Clinton’s, a prescription for better policy.

The test for a future Clinton campaign is not to have the former two-term
president overshadow his wife on the trail. He tends to steal the show.

Not that Mr. Clinton is always in top form. In the 2008 race, he caused
problems for his wife’s campaign by veering off message at times. Mrs.
Clinton is more disciplined and seldom makes news not of her choosing.

Times are different now, and some advisers to Mrs. Clinton believe her
seriousness can work to her advantage. In 2008, voters rejected Mrs.
Clinton in favor of the more likable and charismatic candidate, Barack
Obama. Six years later, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have tanked and many
of his supporters are annoyed that large pieces of his agenda have stalled.
The prison at Guantanamo is still open; America’s roads and bridges are
still in disrepair; wages are still stagnant.

In this environment, voters might be more open to a serious-minded
candidate who perhaps stands a better chance translating campaign promises
into law.

That’s the thinking.  In any case, it may be the Democrats’ best hope. Bill
Clinton can’t run again and Mr. Obama is lame duck. There’s no LeBron James
in the Democratic field.

*The Hill opinion: Lauren Ashburn: “How Hillary Clinton is helping GOP
women”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/218953-how-hillary-clinton-is-helping-republican-women>*

By Lauren Ashburn

September 26, 2014, 6:30 a.m. EDT

Even the Hillary haters would have to agree that she's good for one thing:
getting voters to see that women can play at the highest level of
government. No matter what they think about her handling of Benghazi,
Clinton's visibility is a plus in a land where a measly one out of five
pols roaming the halls of Congress is female.

Whether she runs for president or not (and, of course she's running),
Clinton's supposed fictional depiction in the new CBS drama, "Madam
Secretary," about the exploits of a newly minted secretary of State and mom
of two, will most likely help all female politicians — not just the former
New York senator and her Democratic counterparts — by raising awareness
that hey, women can really do this stuff. (Unless, of course, you're Shenna
Bellows fighting a rare female vs. female Senate race in Maine, where
incumbent Republican Susan Collins is killing it.)

Research shows that strong, highly functioning female characters serve as
role models and change public perceptions of what women can accomplish. By
watching shows about female politicians, voters more easily imagine a
government run by women. And, the more our daughters see images of women
leading our country, the more they believe that they can hold any elective
office in the land.

So the fact that the reviews for the Morgan Freeman-backed series (Sundays
at 8:30pm EDT on CBS] glisten with praise: "riveting," "splendid,"
"entertaining" and "ably led by Tea Leoni," is positive news for all women
who strive to make the world a better place, no matter what their politics.

Still don't believe it?

Let's talk to a card-carrying Mensa actress. Academy Award-winner Geena
Davis, who played a female president on ABC's "Commander in Chief" series,
advocates seeing more positive media images of powerful women as a way to
change our male-dominated culture. Davis, 58, is known for (among other
things) her role as Thelma in the girl-power film "Thelma and Louise."
She's a former nationally ranked archer, and founder of the nonprofit Geena
Davis Institute on Gender in Media. At her institute's recent conference in
Washington, she quoted a poll taken during the "Commander" that series
found 68 percent of people who were familiar with the drama were more
likely to vote for women.

"That's why media images are so powerful," Davis tells me. "Life imitates
art."

Megan Beyer, director of external affairs for EDGE Strategies, a
Switzerland-based company that verifies that females are in leadership
pipeline at companies — believes "it's the time for women" to penetrate the
top spots in all industries.

But whether or not that's true, and whether positive TV and film images
move the dial, there is still a paucity of female players interested in the
real-life political terrain — and it's a treacherous path once elected. The
female pols who get voted in to click their heels on the marble halls of
the Capitol are more likely to trade their Manolos for wing tips the higher
they climb the political ladder, says Abigail Disney, a television producer
who spoke at the Institute on Gender in Media. "Female politicians who get
to the top have to act more like men."

Just ask New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), who was told by a male
colleague not to "lose too much weight" because "I like my girls chubby."
Gillibrand exposed her battles with sexism on Capitol Hill in her recently
released book, Off the Sidelines. Yet she decided not to name names saying,
"It's less important who they are than what they said." (The New York Times
later reported that this offender is the late Sen. Daniel Inouye
[D-Hawaii], which Gillibrand will not verify.)

Female lawmakers "have to calibrate how open — as a powerful woman — they
can be," says Jill Dougherty, a former CNN correspondent who covered the
White House and State Department and is now a public policy scholar at the
Wilson Center. She notes that some women on Capitol Hill buck that trend
and "get together socially to work up a platform or an idea" that crosses
party lines, a rarity today among their male counterparts.

As a media critic, I'll go out on a limb and say that women have a long way
to go both on screen and off. The depictions of women in "Real Housewives"
— of any city — are proof of that. And we don't need to read the 2011 Davis
Institute-funded study to know that there's far more female T&A than
political prowess on TV.

While Carrie Mathison, the CIA operative in "Homeland" played by Claire
Danes, and Olivia Pope, the D.C. fixer in “Scandal” played by Kerry
Washington, have burst onto the scene since then, it's simply not enough.

Until we have a real female commander-in-chief — whether Hillary Clinton or
a female GOP contender like South Carolina's Nikki Haley or New Mexico Gov.
Susana Martinez, whom Ann Romney recently said she would "love to see" run,
we'll have to settle for fictional forerunners to fight our battles.

*Washington Free Beacon column: Matthew Continetti: “The Golden Bowl”
<http://freebeacon.com/columns/the-golden-bowl/>*

By Matthew Continetti

September 26, 2014, 5:00 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative, and our supine
media

Amy Chozick covers Hillary Clinton for the New York Times. She is an
enterprising and dedicated reporter, and many of her stories have annoyed
the 2016 presidential frontrunner. This week Chozick covered a meeting of
the Clinton Global Initiative. It was her turn to be annoyed.

Chozick’s most revealing article about the event had nothing to do with the
scheduled agenda, or with the opaque, labyrinthine, and seedy finances of
the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or with the tsunami of
clichés from the stage about global warming, gender equality, wellness,
empowerment, polarization, Mohammed Yunus, sustainable development,
globalization, Palm Oil alternatives, uplift, board diversity, education
access, green energy, Malala, information technology, organic farming,
public-private partnerships, and #YesAllWomen. The article had to do with
Chozick’s bathroom habits.

Every time she felt the urge, a representative of the Clintons would
accompany her to the ladies’ room. Every time. And not only would the
“friendly 20-something press aide” stroll with Chozick to the entrance of
the john. She also “waited outside the stall.” As though Chozick were a
little girl.

If it was not embarrassing enough to be chaperoned to the water closet by a
recent college graduate no doubt beaming with righteousness and an entirely
undeserved and illusory sense of self-importance, some earnest and vacant
and desperate-to-be-hip Millennial whose affiliation with the Clintons,
whose involvement in their various schemes, consists of nothing more than
her uniform of white shirt and silk scarf—if this was not on its own an
indignity and an insult for a correspondent of the New York Times, when
Chozick asked for comment on the bathroom police, she received the
following response:

Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the initiative, directed me to a press
release about American Standard’s Flush for Good campaign to improve
sanitation for three million people in the developing world. ‘Since you are
so interested in bathrooms and CGI,’ Mr. Minassian said.

Forms of civility, etiquette, and protocol bind Chozick in her dealings
with the men and women who work for the subjects of her beat. They do not
bind me. And so let me say on behalf of Ms. Chozick, and on behalf of all
the other reporters who have been “escorted” to and fro toilets across
America so that not for a moment do they escape the scouring eyes of Bill
and Hillary Clinton, that Craig Minassian can stick his big obnoxious head
in the toilet and Flush for Good.

I am tired of the double game the Clintons have been playing since last
year, when Hillary left the Obama administration and began plotting her
2016 campaign: the passive-aggressive, push-pull tactic of complaining
about and condemning supposedly harsh media coverage even as she and her
husband and their minions use access and connections to advance their
preferred narratives, bullying reporters and outlets who do not conform,
and responding to press inquiries with snark and insults and flip and
mendacious retorts.

What is more I am tired of the mainstream media’s complicity in the
manipulation and goaltending, the manner in which reporters for
establishment outlets accept the Clintons’ absurd regulations and spin, for
reasons that are baffling and mysterious to me: whether it is out of
ideological or partisan bias, or journalistic self-interest, or the
calculation that one day bills will have to be paid, the scribbling will
have to end, and jobs in the White House or at SKDKnickerbocker will have
to be obtained.

There was no mass protest over the despotic rules at the Clinton Global
Initiative. Chozick’s complaint did not become a rallying cry for press
freedom. No major institution threatened not to cover next year’s meeting.
Marty Baron, the executive editor of the Washington Post, tweeted a quote
from one of his writers, Chris Cillizza, who said the Clintons “have as dim
a view of the political press as any modern politician.” Perhaps that view
is justified. Look at how easily the Clintons overpower “the political
press.” Look at the Anaconda Vise in which they hold the mainstream media.

Did the metro dailies use this week’s conference to follow up on Chozick’s
reporting from last year on the conflicts of interest and ethical dilemmas
and outrageous spending at CGI and the Clinton Foundation? To reexamine
Alec Macgillis’s long 2013 profile of Bill Clinton’s protégé Doug Band,
whose consultancy is mixed-up in the foundation’s and the initiative’s
partnerships and sponsorships and commitments? To conduct even the most
mundane inquiry into whether there is anything left to reveal about Hillary
Clinton’s past?

Let’s see. “At Clintons’ 3-Day event, Hillary basks in a candidate’s dream
setting,” read the headline in the Los Angeles Times. “Clinton world braces
for big news on baby front,” read the headline in the Wall Street Journal.
“Clinton wonk party outshines U.N. meeting,” read the headline in the
Washington Post. USA Today ran items on the pledge that soda companies made
at the event to cut calories by 20 percent in 10 years, on Hillary
Clinton’s backing of President Obama’s Syria policy, and on Bill Clinton’s
truism that the country has become more tolerant of racial and sexual
minorities. The Times ran an article on the soda spiel too.

Meanwhile, for the fourth time this year, Alana Goodman of the Washington
Free Beacon broke news about the former first lady who everyone seems to
believe has been thoroughly vetted: In this case, Goodman unveiled Hillary
Clinton’s previously unpublished correspondence with radical activist Saul
Alinsky. The exchange of letters is a fascinating glimpse of Clinton’s
relationship with one of the central figures of the New Left, the author of
Rules for Radicals and the theorist behind community organizing about whom
Clinton wrote her college thesis. Goodman’s piece is both a scoop and a
worthwhile read, on the most basic level to see how Clinton kissed up to
Alinsky, calling his work “revelation,” and on another level to compare the
youthful Hillary against her later incarnations as rapist defense lawyer,
cattle futures trader, land speculator, failed health care reformer, victim
of infidelity, junior senator, failed presidential candidate, secretary of
State, blood clot victim, and motivational speaker.

For the fourth time in 2014, Alana Goodman has scooped the combined
resources of the largest media companies in America. And for the fourth
time in 2014, the media has reacted bizarrely and schizophrenically to her
reporting. Actual, real-life, news-obsessed journalists said, oh, here is
an interesting aspect of her majesty’s biography that hitherto has been
ignored. And liberal hacks wrote blog posts that implicitly recognized our
story of being worthy of a response even as they reassured their blinkered
and complacent audiences that there was nothing to worry about, no news
here, just a bunch of crazy Likudnik nepotists cracking wise in the frat
house.

Neither the legitimate journalists nor the partisan bloggers recognize the
true import of Goodman’s reporting: That the mainstream media is
fundamentally lazy and horrible at their jobs. Here you have all of these
interesting things about Hillary Clinton just sitting in archives across
the country for years, and no one has bothered to look at them because
liberals cannot apply the “objectivity” through which they cover Charles
Koch and Dick Cheney to people like Tom Steyer and Hillary Clinton. Instead
they have to wait until the alternative media forces the issue, whether the
issue is Van Jones, or Steyer’s coal investments, or Hillary’s past, or the
IRS scandal, or Benghazi, or the Dave Brat challenge to Eric Cantor. In
each instance the mainstream media roll their eyes and mutter under their
breath as they report the news in which everyone is interested but them.
They impugn and mock and dismiss and marginalize conservative media when
what they should be doing is thanking us for doing their work.

I am not entirely without sympathy. Mainstream journalists are under
pressures that we are not. They have to pretend for example that David
Brock is a serious person. They are implicated in the liberal Democratic
project through family or sympathy or ambition. They have to take angry
calls from the White House and congressional Democrats and candidates. One
of Alana Goodman’s scoops involved a meeting at the D.C. bureau of the New
York Times at which Hillary Clinton’s top lieutenants complained about the
paper’s coverage of their boss, saying it was too intrusive and critical
and that Clinton is not a public figure but an expectant grandmother. Leave
Hillary alone, she’s under a lot of stress right now, she still has to wear
those glasses at night, we have long memories, all she wants to do is swim,
she hasn’t made up her mind about 2016, she’s putting the finishing touches
on her book, dinner last Saturday was a lot of fun we should do it again
sometime, she’s really a private person and doesn’t like all of this
attention, why do you have to be so mean to her, I’m not going to write
that recommendation letter for Sidwell Friends, Chelsea’s afraid the bad
press may affect the baby, yes I’ll be at Hilary Rosen’s on Friday, we are
totally uninteresting and unaffected and blameless and prosaic and
apolitical but cross us and we’ll cut your f—ing knees off … Could you have
been at that meeting and not laughed?

It will be the unabashedly ideological media that provides the best
coverage of the corporatist “centrist” stalking her way back to power. And
not just the conservative media: There is plenty of sublimated progressive
grumbling at, and critical reporting of, the Hillary juggernaut. Alex
Seitz-Wald of MSNBC wrote a fair-minded piece, “The agony and the ecstasy
of the Clintons at CGI,” that was a much clearer analysis of the event than
any in the major papers. Seitz-Wald went so far as to mention the “elitism
problem” and “Wall Street problem” that dog the Clintons, whose idea of
combating income inequality is to talk about it while vacationing in a
multimillion dollar mansion in the Hamptons, then rub their chins at lavish
uplit plenary sessions with Hollywood celebrities and foreign leaders and
the head of Goldman Sachs.

In the coverage of the Clintons this week you saw in microcosm the future
of political journalism: aggressive ideological reporting will be on the
margins but will score the hits. And the mainstream media will be on the
inside, credentialed and “legitimate,” their cherubic handlers marching
them willingly to marble-tiled hotel bathrooms—hapless prisoners of the
golden bowl.

*Associated Press: “Woman Guilty Of Trespass In Clinton Shoe Incident”
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/085c3d4b6f4e4fab9405464d808ee806/woman-guilty-trespass-clinton-shoe-incidenthttp:/bigstory.ap.org/article/085c3d4b6f4e4fab9405464d808ee806/woman-guilty-trespass-clinton-shoe-incident>*

By Ken Ritter

September 25, 2014, 6:19 p.m. EDT

A Phoenix woman who was accused of throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton while
the former U.S. secretary of state addressed a Las Vegas audience in April
pleaded guilty to trespassing, but is fighting a charge of violence against
a person in a restricted building.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said Thursday that
36-year-old Alison Michelle Ernst is due for a jury trial Oct. 29 in U.S.
District Court on the violence charge.

U.S. District Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr. on Monday ruled Ernst fit
for trial after reviewing results of a psychological exam sought by her
lawyer, William Carrico, an assistant federal public defender.

Carrico was out of the office Thursday and unavailable for comment.

Both charges are misdemeanors. Ernst faces up to a year in prison and a
$100,000 fine on each.

Clinton, a former first lady and Democratic senator from New York, was
speaking on stage April 10 at the Mandalay Bay resort to a recycling
industry conference when Ernst threw a soccer shoe past her.

Clinton flinched and ducked but wasn't struck. She continued her speech.

Ernst surrendered to security guards who escorted her out of the ballroom
to a sofa in a hallway where she told an Associated Press reporter she
threw a shoe and dropped some papers. Ernst didn't identify herself or
explain her action before security officers ushered reporters and
photographers away.

Authorities said Ernst wasn't a credentialed conference attendee and wasn't
supposed to have been in the ballroom, which had more than 1,000 people.

The shoe-throwing incident reminded some of former President George W. Bush
dodging shoes thrown by an Iraqi journalist during a Baghdad news
conference in December 2008. Shoe-throwing is considered an insult in Arab
cultures.

*Calendar:*

*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*

·  September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines fundraiser for DCCC
for NY and NJ candidates (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-new-york-fundraiser-110902.html?hp=r4>
)

·  September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines another fundraiser
for DCCC (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-headline-dccc-fundraiser-110764.html?hp=l8_b1>
)

·  September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton meets Indian Prime Minister
Modi (Zee News
<http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/no-modi-sharif-meeting-in-new-york-mea_1474656.html>
)

·  September 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton keynotes Congressional
Hispanic Caucus Institute, Inc., conference (CHCI
<http://www.chci.org/news/pub/former-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-to-address-leadership-luncheon-at-public-policy-conference>
)

·  September 30 – Potomac, MD: Sec. Clinton fundraises for Maryland
gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown (WaPo
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hillary-clinton-to-headline-fundraiser-for-maryland-gubernatorial-hopeful-brown/2014/09/19/3e9b4aea-4057-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html>
)

·  September 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for New Hampshire
state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro of Manchester (New Hampshire Journal
<http://nhjournal.com/hillary-clinton-to-host-dc-reception-for-long-time-friend-dallesandro/>
)

·  October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the real estate CREW
Network Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network
<http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>)

 ·  October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton signs “Hard Choices” at Books and
Books (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
<http://www.hillaryclintonmemoir.com/miami_book_signing>)

 ·  October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton fundraises for Charlie Crist (
Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-charlie-crist-campaign-florida-111229.html>
)

·  October 6 – Ottawa, Canada: Sec. Clinton speaks at Canada 2020 event (Ottawa
Citizen
<http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/hillary-clinton-speaking-in-ottawa-oct-6>
)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton and Sen. Reid fundraise for the
Reid Nevada Fund (Ralston Reports
<http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/hillary-raise-money-state-democrats-reid-next-month>
)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation
Annual Dinner (UNLV
<http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>)

·  October 14 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes
salesforce.com Dreamforce
conference (salesforce.com
<http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/highlights.jsp#tuesday>)

·  October 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton fundraises for House
Democratic women candidates with Nancy Pelosi (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/hillary-clinton-nancy-pelosi-110387.html?hp=r7>
)

 ·  December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts
Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)